


to indeed be a god

by oneyike



Series: the bizarre case of one holden ford [1]
Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: 4straight paragraphs abt ciphers, Deception, Gen, Interview, bill losing his shit a lil, billis highkey kinda useless in this fullstop, bullshit psychology, graphic descriptions of mutilated corpses but itss not that much dw, holden being creepy lol, i love doctor wendy carr, i started writing at like 11 pm its 2 am now, iddk how coherent this is rlly, lowkey ooc holden, n smart, serial killer au, since he is a fucking murderer, wendy being sexie, wtf r tags even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:13:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24267991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneyike/pseuds/oneyike
Summary: agent bill tench and wendy carr interview holden ford, a serial killer who's more than happy to help a case they're "analyzing to benefit future profilers".
Relationships: Holden Ford & Bill Tench, Wendy Carr & Holden Ford, Wendy Carr & Holden Ford & Bill Tench
Series: the bizarre case of one holden ford [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751812
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	to indeed be a god

**Author's Note:**

> this is HOPEFULLY gonna be a series on god  
> title us apparently from a walt whitman poem i know i from when charlie dalton screams it in dead poets society so
> 
> basically holden killed 5 people, right. gruesome and ungodly murders. only, he doesn't actually remember doing this.
> 
> wendy and bill ask him questions about each murder, and he is more than happy to give input on why things are what they are. he doesn't question that he knows these things, he just thinks that he is very smart n useful to these cool as fbi agents.
> 
> he knows he killed people, and he's not very upset about it, btw.
> 
> as they continue asking about cases, he slowly starts to realize their talking about him. thats the future of this. hopefully ill write fics previous to this as well. i have like 4 other fics planned out with a few things written i will try to bang it out thank u.
> 
> ALSO..... the thing is that holden isnt supposed to know abt brian!! im guessing that bil said smth to a guard n holden charmed it out of him, or hes talking to a mr ed kemper or smth. idk ;)

“Hello, Holden,” Wendy says pleasantly as she sits down, starting the recorder before she speaks. Bill grunts non-committedly to him, already smoking.

Holden smiles at her. “Good evening, Dr. Carr. Bit late for a visit, isn’t it?”

Wendy smiles apologetically. Bill doesn’t know why she plays this role with Holden. “We were out on a case earlier, but I still wanted to speak with you.”

Bill watches Holden’s eyes light up at the mention of a case. He can’t help but think, in another life, he would’ve been a brilliant profiler. In this life, it’s just fucking unnerving. 

“A case. Can I see it?” at least he tries not to sound too excited. That’s more than they can say than previous times. 

“Of course not. We can show you more of the same case as before, though.” 

Bill’s surprised that he’s fallen for it every time.

Wendy lays out the pictures of the first scene. Last time it was the ex-principal. The third killing. This time, it’s the first and second. Even though he’s already seen it, Bill wants to look away. Holden can’t get enough.

“A Hispanic woman in her mid-50’s is found dead in one of her client’s homes in Philadelphia.”

“What did she do?”

“She was a landlord. She was called in to assess the plumbing issues called in by the tenant of this apartment.”

“The killer’s?”

“No.” 

“You’re sure?”

“Certain.”

“Then whose was it?”

“A coworker’s. He offered to wait for the landlord while she picked up an extra shift. They were good enough friends that she agreed. He claimed he never showed up, and no one has been able to contact her since her first statement was given to the police.”

“What could she even know? You caught him regardless, didn’t you?”

“Sure, Holden. But the police prefer to be thorough. It was a shame she just disappeared.”

Bill admires Wendy more than he ever has in this moment, watching her talk with Holden. How even her accusatory tone is easy, and Holden only smiles in response. 

“So how did she die? Officially? Strangulation? Blood loss? Hmm?”

“Her throat was slit, ear to ear. She died quickly. The bruising is from him choking her first, to subdue her, not kill her.”

“Any fun experimentation postmortem?” 

“If by ‘fun’ you mean a very brutal and sloppy dissection, same as before, then yes. Some of her organs were damaged from it. The cuts are messy, discordant.”

“So? They were before. This was early, wasn’t it? He was getting the hang of it.” Holden argues. Wendy hums, disagreeing. Bill finally cuts in, “That makes sense, until you see the first killing. It should be messy, sloppy, but it’s done with near surgical precision.”

“Oh?” Holden’s eyebrows raise. Something about him seems proud. “Was he a surgeon?” 

“No. He worked at a grocery store part-time, diner part-time.”   
"Did he work with the girl at the diner or the store?" they can both tell that Holden is getting bored.

Instead of answering, Wendy starts to lay out the next pictures. Holden takes a much greater interest in them. 

“Same killer as before, obviously,” Wendy says, setting the scene. “Middle-aged woman found disemboweled in her home in Brooklyn, New York. Cut from her clavicles to her pelvic bone, like an autopsy, and no signs of sexual trauma. Every organ has been removed for an indeterminate amount of time and placed back in, except for the uterus. Cause of death was exsanguination.”

Holden can’t get enough. He carefully examines every picture. “What happened with the uterus?” He doesn’t even look up to ask. 

“He completely decimated it. Almost looks like it was put through a fucking food processor.” Bill sounds disgusted.

Holden tilts his head, and finally looks up. “What’s his connection?”

Wendy smiles, ruefully. “It was his mother.” 

xxvxx

“I wouldn’t kill the mother first,” Holden states, when the facts have been laid out, hours later. “It’s sort of a finale, right? You work up to it. He’s killing people who’ve wronged him, and what’s the worst thing you can do but bring someone into a world they don’t belong in?” One leg is tucked under him, and he hums to himself as he stares at the photo, fingers tapping endlessly. 

They always talk about “hypotheticals”. What Holden “would’ve done”. 

“He killed his mother first,” Wendy states. This shocks Holden into looking at them. “No,” he sounds disbelieving, the edges of his mouth curl into a grin even as his jaw hangs open. “Did he really?” He sounds like Brian, when Bill’s telling him an outrageous story, like he isn’t discussing a gruesome murder, and he scoffs, taking a drag from his cigarette. Un-fucking-believable.

Wendy just nods. 

“Damn,” Holden sighs. His whole body has gone lax. “You can tell it broke the fantasy- look,” he pulls photos from all the crime scenes, and points to seemingly insignificant details. Bill can’t help but lean forward. ”See- how the levels of organization fluctuate randomly?” Wendy nods. “We thought it was just based on his emotions, where he’s more of a situational killer. Wrong place, wrong time.” 

Holden nods. “Solid theory, but you’re wrong. He had this whole fantasy down cold. He hadn’t spoken to his girlfriend in over two years before he killed her, right? So the original break of his trust in the relationship was the thing that pushed him over the edge. When he started planning. Or maybe when he tied it together, he’s probably had separate fantasies on how to kill each of them since he first met them. Excluding his mother, but that was still definitely a long time coming.”

“He isn’t chasing one fantasy, where each kill is perfecting it, every kill together is the fantasy. He’s planned it to the smallest detail. With the murder that was supposed to be first, I’m guessing the landlord, he kept it messy. Here, with the most planning, the whole house was cleaned. There’s traces of bleach in the kitchen to show there’s only blood where he wants there to be blood. He was upset that he broke the order, so he overcompensated.” Wendy is staring with rapt attention, but Bill is trying his best not to shake his head in disbelief. 

Holden continues. “So the mother wasn’t first. In the fantasy, that is. She was the grand finale, as I said, which is why there’s so much attention to detail. He was supposed to evolve. Look-” He points to the fridge, and Bill has to squint to catch whatever it is of focus. 

“Look closely- the fridge magnets.” Holden is grinning like the cat who got the cream, and a shiver runs down Bill’s spine from the sight of it. He looks away from him, and back at the photo.

“Z-V-Y-Y-F T-V-T? What about it? Does it mean something?” Thank God for Wendy. Bill couldn’t have read it if he tried. Maybe he needs glasses.

Holden looks slightly put out, but continues to grin. “It- It’s code! The Caesar Cipher. Did no one catch that? The letters are placed very delicately, not all over the place, in a straight line, not to mention, most fridge magnet sets don’t come with multiples of letters that aren’t as frequent as, say, E or A in words, so he may have brought some. Plus, it's an older set, from the mid-50's? The colors are a little faded from sun exposure, and the fridge is in direct line from the sunlight that'd come through the window,, some had to have been lost throughout the years, if she had kids, and-” Holden’s upset, talking faster than normal and frowning, eyebrows furrowed.

“Caesar Cipher?” Wendy cuts in. Thank God for Dr. Wendy Carr, Bill can’t help but think again, because it gets the kid to shut up. His eyes light up again. “Yes! Named after Julius Caesar, he used to use it in private correspondence, it’s a very simple cipher as opposed to, say, the Vigenere Cipher- and you probably don’t care. It’s easy, though, seriously. Do you have a pen?” he looks at Bill, in the eyes, instead of at the pen that is quite obviously poking out of his shirt pocket. Bill warily hands it over, and Holden grabs a paper from the file between them, and flips it over. 

“The letters are shifted according to a number and a direction, a common one is three letters forward, so you solve it by going three letters back. So, say the message is, oh, I-R-U-G. I, so H, G, F.” he writes it as he goes, a capital F under a circled I-R-U-G, and his handwriting is small and slanted, without too much pressure applied. He’s writing so fast it’s surprising it's legible. “R. Q, P, O.” a capital O goes next to the F. “I won’t talk you through all of it,” he scribbles in R, D, after the FO, and underlines the word. “But you get the gist.”

Bill’s head is reeling. He stares at the note, and _FORD_ stares back at him. The red ink feels dangerously reminiscent of the message left at the girlfriend’s murder, and suddenly, it doesn’t feel as light-hearted.

Bill laughs. “Christ, kid.” he shakes his head. But Wendy picks up Holden’s discarded pen, and writes out the message from the picture. ZVYYF TVT. “I’m guessing it’s not three letters back?”

Holden shakes his head. “No- you can see on the picture, 7B, just above the letters? He said how to solve it.” he points at the picture once again, and Bill pretends he sees it. 

“So 7 letters back,” Wendy nods, determinedly. Holden backs, in confirmation.

“Mhm! It’s generally easier to write out the alphabet, either original or within the limits of the cipher when you’re first learning, so feel free to!”

Bill senses the underlying meanings in the word- I’ll be able to hold that over you. I’m better than you. I’m smarter than you. Wendy seems to notice it as well, and shakes her head. “No thanks. I’m sure I can figure it out.”

And he only shrugs in response. “Sure.”

He waits patiently as Wendy works it out, openly staring at Bill, unnaturally silent. It’s the quietest Holden has ever been.

“Any significance with seven, you think?” Bill asks, to be polite. Holden doesn’t blink. “Maybe something happened when he was seven? She disappointed him somehow? Dad left?” 

Holden shushes him. “Let her work, Bill. Unless you want a cipher too. Oh! How well do you know morse code?” Holden starts tapping on the table, _Tap tap tap. Brush brush brush. Tap tap tap._

“SOS? That’s pretty stand-” but Bill doesn’t get to finish.

Holden doesn’t break eye contact, but pauses, and starts again. 

_Tap tap tap tap. Brush brush brush. Tap brush brush. Tap tap tap, pause. Brush tap tap tap. Tap brush tap. Tap tap. Tap brush. Brush tap. Stop._

Wendy looks up before Bill can respond. He only gets out a harsh exhale before forcing himself to calm down. Holden looks away, but Bill keeps staring. 

“He apologized.” 

That draws Bill’s attention, but he still takes a second before taking his eyes off of Holden, and looks at the now decoded message. 

“Yes, he did.” Holden says, staring at Bill again.

_Sorry, Mom._

Bill calls the guards in to end the session. Wendy looks affronted, but Holden says nothing. Bill doesn’t know what caused Holden to change, but he needed to get the fuck out of there. 

Holden goes quietly, but his hands are tapping on his thighs as he’s led out.

xxvxx

Wendy signs them out and gets his gun, and Bill wants to feel bad for leaving her with the clean up and thank-yous, but he had to get out. He hopes she’ll understand. The car is already started when she gets in.

They sit quietly, but Bill doesn’t pull out. 

“What was all that with the morse code?” Wendy asks, staring at him calmly from the passenger seat as Bill lights up. He doesn’t answer. 

“Bill,” she sounds frustrated, and rightfully so. He’d ended the interview well before they’d wanted to. Bill makes eye contact, but can’t hold it. He looks away, out the window, at the Pennsylvania sunset, and he can’t help but think the orange of the horizon is the ugliest thing he’s ever seen.

“He asked how Brian was.”


End file.
